


morijio

by matoba



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: M/M, Monsterfucking, youkai AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 03:26:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17296862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matoba/pseuds/matoba
Summary: morijio (盛塩): a compound of the japanese words for “pile” (mori) and “salt” (shio). the tradition of leaving twin mounds of salt on either side of the entrance to an establishment. It is said to keep evil from the door.however, sometimes, it’s said to draw in lovers, instead.





	morijio

 

 

It starts with a cold wind.

 

The windows are shut, the air-con is blasting heat into the apartment, and still: a thin, ice-cold breeze nudges its way through, clinking the wind chime, rustling papers next to the unplugged answering machine. The lights flicker - though that could be justified by the late Autumn rainstorm that's pouring down outside. A mosquito that had been clinging to the kitchen ceiling drifts away, finding the space beneath the front door and leaving, escaping into the apartment block's hallway.

 

A possession does not come about all at once; it starts in stages - the entity has to nose around first, has to establish itself and grow stronger, develop roots, dig in claws. Sometimes, it begins in dreams - those that you cannot wake from, or wake paralysed; nightmares, repetitions, circles. Shadows in the corners of rooms.

 

He sits up there, hangs there and watches.

 

To even the least spiritually gifted, he may appear in the peripheral points of vision - dark hair, dark robes, pale fingers ending in claws, needle-like teeth. Fearsome and beautiful and evil. He used to haunt the Eastern Forest; his worshippers sacrifice in blood for him; he's an older demon, flowers and wine aren't favourable when flesh is on the table. It had only been a glimpse that had taken his fancy - blond hair, a weak, faltering heart. He can smell the frayed edges of insecurity from a mile off - they present the easiest hosts to overtake; those with fragile inner worlds are the most convenient for him - they get scared easily, try to ignore him for as long as they can.

 

The fires in the Eastern Forest draw him, but he stays; slinks through the passageways of the apartment at night, drawing his power beneath him until his footsteps are audible, passing by the closed door of the bedroom. The door opens, shuts, and he smiles a many-toothed smirk. Ah, there it is. The beginning.

 

The first shudder of understanding - _you are not alone_.

 

He causes mischief after that, pretends at being a poltergeist. It only amuses him for so long before he grows bored with rattling pots and pans, opening doors once they have been closed, closing those that were open. He allows himself to be glimpsed, just once, when his quarry is in the shower - the drama of a blurred, dark figure on the other side of the curtain pleases him, and, just for effect, he turns the water ice cold for a moment, revels in the yelp that follows.

 

Finally, he cannot help but sink into the man's dreams.

 

Horror, blood, terror, filth. Awful dreams; loved ones dying, slow necrosis, witch circles, the bottoms of so many wells. He finds an archetype - the dying, pale mother, the hatred from a father - and _plays_. 

 

He's always been an imaginative creature, you see.

 

When the man wakes he lingers above him on the ceiling, smiles his creature's smile, and then melts into the paintwork, seeps out to enjoy the look of fear on this handsome actor's face.

 

He follows him around, too - obsessively, hangs just above his shoulder, steps two steps behind him. He watches him on set, breathes in his ear and finds that he can make the man forget his lines in the film, can cause the whole set to have to take a break; the director yelling _cut_ and the make up artists rushing in to blot out dark circles beneath his quarry’s eyes. He can watch him in his trailer, too, see the exhausted drop of head into hands. He's still waiting to speak with him, but he wants to, he _wants to_. A demon has a right to talk to his chosen subject, he's sure.

 

He disappears for a time after that, angry at nothing in particular. His anger causes power cuts throughout the town - electrical boxes overload, wifi signals become displaced. 

 

Of course, he cannot stay away for too long, and he returns with that same cold breeze of the first day, settling back into his corner to watch.

 

 

///////

 

 

In the Catholic faith, there are 4 defined stages of demonic possession (infestation, oppression, obsession, and finally, the end goal - possession). While Japanese demons do tend to do things their own way, there are alignments. After all, the non-living planes are amorphous, and blend into each other; customs and cultures are set aside for things such as when one wants to condense into an apparition. Youkai, demons, yurei, ghosts - each culture has its equivalent. 

 

They’re currently in the second stage, he believes (you see, he’s an organised creature who likes a sense of ritual - there’s power in these things, in walking the old paths, in following tradition. It’s probably why he finds the clan fires so enticing; the chants are old, he knows them from his single human lifetime, a thousand years ago).

 

Tonight, he’s lured the man (whose name, he has discovered with utter glee, is _Natori Shuuichi_. Names are powerful, he knows that) into the hallway of the apartment building, and he’s been lurking above him, creeping along the ceiling as he often likes to. Natori hisses into the darkness, raises his hand to rub at his eyes, dragging fingers through his hair and leans against the wall.

 

Speaking of names: _his_ name is Matoba. He shares it with the clan. His given name might be lost, perhaps. But, this too: he may remember it. The human lifetime was a very long time ago, it’s true.

 

Anyway. Tonight he wants to break his silence, to open the line of communication. This young man has the sight, after all; he’d had to deal with shiki. It’s very troublesome to initiate a possession and then find that the subject is guarded by a bunch of weirdly loving demons already. All mothering, all leaning towards feminine in their appearances. Their master had told them to leave about a week ago - there was too much danger in that apartment. Matoba had languished behind the couch for a few hours to listen to Natori explaining the situation to them, had just about purred to himself when the man had paused, gathering his stressed voice and then continued - had told his shiki to leave _for now_ , that it was a danger to all of them to remain here when _something_ had taken up residence. He’d hidden it from that teenager friend of his, too. Too dangerous, too dangerous, too evil, too _personal_. It had been those dreams, he’s sure of it.

 

The ladies had been unhappy about it, and he senses that the child of the group - the youngest - loyal Hiiragi, has been spending nights on the building’s rooftop, close enough to still be called by her master. He’s perplexed by their loyalty - they treat Natori as both master and ward; dedicated and solicitous when he’s sleeping on the couch during the daytime - too tired from the work on set, too tired because there’s something else there, leeching energy.

 

He keeps watching as Natori goes back inside from the hallway - he’d followed the sound of the footsteps again, and had found that it lead to nothing. Just the fact that the hallway lights had expired over the past few hours. Unusual, seeing as the block is expensive; the building management are always on top of things like this. When Natori closes the door behind him, locking it, resealing the wards, placing salt at the genkan, he glances out of the keyhole, just to check, just because paranoia is something that he’s always lived with.

 

Matoba smiles at him with a mouth full of teeth.

 

/////////

 

 

He watches a lot.

 

He’s fascinated, of course - he likes things about this human’s body; the blond hair drew him first. He likes the soft look of the red-brown eyes, too. He sits on the edge of the bed and observes him sleep sometimes.

 

One night, Natori wakes. He’s tired - the man wakes up tired more often than he does well rested. Matoba’s fully corporeal, solid where he dips the mattress. There’s something awful and sad in the way that the man reaches out, and haltingly places a hand on Matoba’s dark head, strokes just once along his mink-black hair. Matoba closes his eyes, cat-like, and permits it.

 

“What do you want?”

 

His red eye opens, eyebrow raising.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

Natori’s voice scratches, his hand smoothes slowly through dark strands. It’s bad luck to touch a demon that’s haunting you - Matoba knows this. But he lets him, tips his head into it and doesn’t answer. He allows the touch, blinks once and then again; languid. 

 

Fear hangs heavy in the air around him, and he doesn’t feed on it as he would usually. He senses a rustle from the rooftop - the shiki child has sensed her master’s danger, but she cannot enter unless he bids her to. Matoba’s hold on the house is too strong - he’d eat her whole and snap her little bird bones. Best she stay put.

 

No one has touched him in hundreds of years. 

 

This exorcists’s hand is warm when he does - black hair slips over his shoulder; velveteen and inky, and this exorcist actor’s fingertips move it aside, shift it back and expose his perfectly human-looking ear. He looks directly into the actor’s tired gaze, finds his eyes red-rimmed and heavy, as if sleep has been on the edge of his consciousness all day. Matoba can’t resist moving in closer to the warmth that he radiates, a clawed hand resting against the man’s belly. He leans, scents his neck, just below his ear, just beside his hairline - aftershave; unexciting human scents, something worn and pitiful and gentle. He does not quite know what to make of this move by his quarry, so instead he pulls back, red eyes flick across the handsome face, before meeting his eyes, seeking something.

 

A beautiful vessel, he thinks. Lovely enough to corrupt.

 

He smiles, rows of teeth unsheathing behind his thin lips.

 

“Wow, okay”, Natori says, and Matoba twitches his head to one side at the exclamation, “let’s just— not get too frisky now.”

 

Pat, pat.

 

The demon pulls back a bit more, looking up at Natori’s hand. Cocky human, he thinks; touching him like one would a dog; how undignified, what an affront. The room seems to rattle, just slightly, as if a small earthquake were moving through, beneath the ground. Natori grows visibly distressed, Matoba notes, pleased, and the lights of the room flicker. 

 

He sighs, raises a lowered gaze back to the other man’s face.

 

So, this human is afraid of him. 

 

Self preservation is a remarkably basic instinct, of course, he thinks, and settles in beside him once more, watching him with his feline blinking. The lizard skitters across the bridge of Natori’s nose just then, and Matoba watches that, too. A pity he’s been inhabited by an unfortunate little usurper already. He’ll burn it right out of him when he takes possession himself, thankfully. The parasite, he senses, brings no harm but a simmering, kindred loneliness. A shadow youkai, seeking a host with a matching longing. Perhaps, he thinks, and moves closer, following it despite Natori’s flinch, it would leave this man’s body were he to find adequate companionship. To take a genuine lover. It would find he no longer offered it the solidarity of wishing for something, and it would leave to pursue another.

 

“Well,” Natori starts, and Matoba looks at him, about an inch away from his face, “I was going to cook dinner, if you’d like to join me and stop uh, making the electricity cut out.”

 

Dinner?

 

Inviting a demon to your table. Matoba’s had no experience with that. Over all of his various lifetimes, he’s been the monster, not the houseguest. The thing beneath the bed, not at the table. Natori gets a long, silent stare, and the room darkens, though the lights do not flicker. There’s a shudder that runs through the man, and Matoba enjoys the fear, enjoys that this is this man’s way of dealing with it - inviting him in, inviting him to his table. For what, to what end? Oh, he can’t predict it. Which makes it all the more enticing. The demon pauses, lingers, glances off into the darkness of the rest of the house - before looking back to Natori.

 

He hasn’t used his voice in a very long time - he can’t remember the last words he spoke, nor in what language. Japanese is much the same as the rest of human language, he supposes, and his reply is quiet, the dialect a little old.

 

“I accept the invitation.”

 

Natori’s smile is tight, tired.

 

“Well then, you might have to let go of me. I’d ask if you’re allergic to anything but—“ the faintest, most dim hint of his usual sparkle, “I suppose that might be a silly question, hm?”

 

 

///////

 

 

“You can come down, you don’t have to uh— sit on the ceiling.”

 

He’s actually not sitting on the ceiling, he just happens to prefer the corners of rooms. They’re the best vantage points, protected from all sides. But, the demon slinks down when the invitation comes, slips to watch Natori chopping vegetables, form coalescing in a dark haze to leave him standing beside the kitchen counter, clawed fingers resting on the countertop, nails and fingertips dark against the marble. Natori gives him a sidelong look, and he hears a long breath leave the man. Matoba looks at him a bit longer, eyes tracing the fineness of his profile. A strong jawline, a graceful yet masculine neck. Handsome, he supposes, is what a creature more human than himself would think.

 

There are— things he wishes to vocalise, now, to this man that he has watched and haunted these past weeks, but he can’t excuse the impulse, so he stays silent, the lights of the room lower than their usual wattage, but not— flickering. There’s a lot of shiki activity coming from the roof, he senses; they know he has taken form and made contact - it’s unorthodox in a haunting, but Matoba has only ever done precisely as he pleased, despite his adherence to most of tradition. Those shiki are concerned for their master. Odd, for demons. They’ve grown attached, he supposes, and his gaze lands on Natori once more. The exorcist is hopeless in a human way, he thinks; he invites care-taking with his abject, well-hidden loneliness and enforced solitude. The handsomeness helps. Beauty is the greatest draw.

 

Matoba himself is beautiful, he knows. But his brand of loveliness is repellant; too sharp to draw anything close.

 

“So, are you from around here?”

 

 _So_ , Natori is making conversation.

 

Matoba pauses, thinks his answer through, thinks if this mortal deserves the consideration of an answer at all.

 

“No.”

 

There is more to say, but he’ll wait. He tends to have a certain— tendency, once talking, that trends towards _loquacious._ It would not do well to unthinkingly slip into an old habit with a human. It might be too telling, might reveal too much. He doesn’t want this man finding that he has enough control to lure Matoba into a trap. After all, exorcists will use any out they have.

 

“No,” Natori echoes, tipping his scruffy blond head to the side and tossing the vegetables into a pan, “Alright then. Are you going to be haunting me for the rest of my life, or just until you get bored?”

 

All these nosy questions. Matoba wants to return to his corner.

 

“Perhaps.”

 

The man stops, taps his chopsticks on the edge of the pan to dislodge an errant mung bean sprout, “I see you’re not that into this conversation, pity, I’d like to know more about you.”

 

He’s sure Natori would. There’s also something about the delivery of that line (yes, that exactly: _line_ ) that makes Matoba narrow his eye. Is he being— taken for a fool? As if a human’s faux-romantic machinations will get him out of being possessed. Matoba launches into a horrifying demon’s grin.

 

“I intend to inhabit your body.”

 

Natori’s eyebrow arches, “Well, I’ll be playing hard to get in that case. Wine?”

 

Wine. Blood would be better, wine is a compromise. He nods once.

 

His claws slip a little, clicking against the glass, and Natori watches him, meets his single demonic eye with a bit of a patient look. The scent of fear has diminished, he realises, closing his fingers around the glass (not a wine glass, he notes, just a glass— he has noticed that this man has very little in the way of worldly items - he has observed him drinking water out of a European tea cup, next to the sink). Perhaps he’s being too personable with his prey - he should shatter all of the cabinets, should sprout leathery wings. Instead, he sips his drink, watches the oil hiss in the pan.

 

Natori pours himself a generous helping of the alcohol, proceeds to finish it in several swallows, and then refills it, looking stressed but— faintly better.

 

 

//////

 

 

He sits on the couch, feet tucked beneath him. He’d evaporated half way through dinner, called off to go about his infernal obligations - he terrorises where he can, causes crops to die, diseases livestock. He’s corrupted many things; minds, machinery, weaponry, hearts (he’s lead many a weak-willed soul into temptation, and he’s in the process of doing it again - will continue to do so, and with great pleasure). 

 

In the time that he has been absent, he sees that Natori has cleared the plates away, that he has fallen asleep on the long end of the couch - another wine glass on the table, the bottle beside it. So, turning to vices in the face of a serious, demonic haunting? Matoba’s seen it before. Fear causes all sorts of things to rise to the surface.

 

The television is on, the volume turned low. He’s noticed that Natori has been leaving it on since he started his process of infestation; perhaps it eases some of the fear, the paranoia - the false voices make the house seem less dead-silent, less isolating. Matoba curls against the arm of the sofa like a devil cat, and Natori’s eyes open slightly, glancing over at him. The man seems to be drunk enough to not flinch, instead he reaches out and crooks a finger.

 

“Hey, monster. Why don’t you come here.”

 

He goes; uncurls, and then stalks.

 

“If you look past the— one messed up eye, you’re kind of not awful looking, you know.”

 

Hardly a compliment. He’s a magnificent demon, this human should be prostrating himself upon the earth in gratitude for being able to do something so blasphemous as curl his fingers in Matoba’s long hair. Matoba narrows that eye at Natori.

 

“Your hair’s nice.” The actor says.

 

Of course it is. He wants to scratch this fool’s eyes out.

 

“I don’t like it when you watch me in the shower though. Mm, I did see you.”

 

He’d been quite subtle. The exorcist must not be as weak in his sight as he’d initially thought. Which is not quite embarrassing, but warrants future caution. He’ll write it down to the fallacies of worldly desire. Natori’s fingers wind in his hair, the dark strands slipping around his knuckles and out of his hold only to be taken up again, stroked. The exorcist’s eyelashes have dipped as he watches it, and his blond hair is a mess; the fringe falling into his eyes. The lizard sits at the collar of his open shirt, just visible against a collarbone’s tip. Matoba wishes he could eat the creature, but that may ruin his plans for this vessel.

 

This is a fine way to confront a possession attempt, he thinks, and leans into this idiot actor’s hands once more. He’ll indulge him and then he’ll haunt his dreams so fearsomely that the man will dread sleeping.

 

Usually, this creature ties his hair back with a band; Natori reaches for it, pulls it loose. The strands fall loosely around his shoulders, over them. Natori’s head dips back against the couch.

 

“You can’t stay, I have work to do.”

 

Matoba raises his head at last, shifts closer to the man’s body and sets himself there, where the couch dips at Natori’s weight. The cold breeze shifts through the room once more, but circumvents them; inured to Matoba’s presence. He knows the meaning of _you can’t stay_. He’s heard it time and time again - usually whispered, desperately, at the final moments - _you can’t stay, you can’t stay_ \- they’re more begging in his experience, a last ditch effort to be rid of him, to exorcise the place. But, the way Natori says it is practiced; the way he’s certain lovers have been told that they cannot share the bed for much longer, the way they need to collect their fallen clothes and leave through the back door.

 

His quarry; flushed cheeks, tired eyes - is drunk.

 

Matoba’s whole, red eye drags to him.

 

“You cannot rid your house of me, I’m not here for it.” He sits a little straighter, information to deliver, “I’m here to haunt you. If your shiki come back, I’ll destroy them. Surely, you know.”

 

A gentle tug to his hair follows, his head tips with it.

 

“Yes. I have a friend who could exorcise you. He has a wolf demon at his command.”

 

An empty threat; Matoba has heard about the boy. He’s an optimistic child, he doesn’t know the bloodier side of these things.

 

“Bring him, then.” He leans into the backrest of the couch, clawed fingers reaching up to curve about Natori’s wrist, the nails clacking, insect-like, where they meet, and he leans down, sniffs him there at the heel of his hand; the sound that rises in his thin chest is neither purr nor growl, but the middle ground.

 

“Bring him to meet me, if you wish.”

 

Yes, he’d like to taste strong blood like that. Fine wine aside, there are no substitutes for the metal in a child’s veins.

 

Natori’s head moves, shakes just once.

 

“I don’t think so, wouldn’t want to share you. I’m the jealous type you see.”

 

Wise, Matoba thinks, wise. Wolf or no wolf, he’d steal a child of that strength. He’d leave something in the boy’s place of course - but it may not be so savoury for the family to find that it’s raising a youkai gremlin instead of the blond, sweet child they’d fostered.

 

Natori’s looking at him again, something liquid in his mellow, chestnut gaze. Matoba looks back at him, finds him hollow.

 

“Jealous, are you.” The demon says.

 

Matoba’s unpracticed in verbal sparring. He’s not needed it for centuries. Natori calls for it with his flirting, with his feigned romantic turns of phrase. The demon finds he wants to parry, now and then, when he’s struck by the odd, unexpected line.

 

Natori’s mouth moves, quirks, “Mm, sometimes, yeah. I guess.”

 

There’s warmth in the way he says it, and the demon thinks again: drunk. But: there’s this, too— Natori’s voice might be tinged with the easy sexuality that alcohol lends those with clever tongues, but there’s something even warmer in the way that Natori’s hand has fallen to Matoba’s thigh. It’s a natural progression, gravitationally speaking, but— who lays a hand on the demon in their house? Those fingers have not simply lain still, either — they’ve closed about the creature’s kneecap; as if around an armrest.

 

Despite the show, Matoba discerns more.

 

No wonder that lizard chose this host. How much loneliness can lead you to keep company with things like himself, he thinks.

 

The demon settles in, turns his eyes towards the glow of the television screen.

 

Natori is watching him, he knows this, because he can feel human eyes on his face. He has not been looked at by so many people. The Matoba clan have seen him several times, of course, but they are only half human - they live in the forest, and have worshipped him for centuries. They have extended lives, they leave him human sacrifices, they burn bodies in his name. He gave them their longer lives for the very reason that they do not worship him through prayer or incense. Natori looking at him is not quite the same as that, because Natori looks at him— oddly.

 

He turns, looks back.

 

“What do you want?” The demon asks around his rows of teeth.

 

The exorcist does not answer immediately, instead reaches a forefinger and removes a lick of hair from Matoba’s forehead.

 

“Nothing at all, you?”

 

“All things, you know this.”

 

There’s nothing said in answer, just a soft hum from Natori. Matoba can’t stop his mouth from tightening; a remnant of his humanity there, in the gesture, and he looks back to the screen, the flickering playing over his milk-white features, turning them even sharper, even more inhuman.

 

A moment later, the man speaks again: “All things, hmm? Every single one? Greedy.”

 

Matoba knows he’s overstayed already, and should go. He’d been too curious today, too willing to show himself to this idiot of an exorcist. He’s stuck around too long, and now he wants to stay even longer - because demon or not, he is not exempt from the humiliation of enjoying company. His lips part and instead of answering, he vanishes; sinks into the very fabric and makeup of the couch and then wall and then insulation of the apartment building and disappears. He leaves nothing but three seconds of a blackout behind him, and Natori, of course, staring grimly into the unlit, then relit room.

 

 

///////

 

 

He does not return for another twelve days, and thirteen hours. 

 

He spends them in the woods instead, haunting the forest paths that his clan like to frequent. He sees the boy, of course; gold hair is rarer than an eleventh finger, rarer than being born with the sight, rarer than blue or green eyes. Natori has it too, he thinks, and follows the teenager instead. Matoba follows the things that may be of use to him, usually. He has a practical heart, beneath the eggshell covering of evil, and practicality tends to outshine his curiosity. Usually.

 

This boy, _Natsume_ , same as the girl, would be a wiser choice. He could turn him, call him. That fool, all alone in his sad apartment, with his weak shiki is nothing comparatively. The demon reaches, stalks, follows in the footsteps of the teenager. Not so young, he thinks, not too young to be tempted. He could play to his dreams, could find his routes into them and stroke along the nerves of burgeoning sexuality, of the things that are not permitted yet, could coax them to life and nurse them there.

 

But, he stands in the path as the boy walks into the woods, watches his back and lets him go, watches as his pace increases, as if sensing some shadow behind him that has just broken away from his shoulder.

 

Matoba allows it.

 

An easy quarry was never of interest to him.

 

Natori’s dreams are far more preferable because his heart is weaker— more human. It flakes and wavers, and Matoba likes that - he likes the conflict it causes the exorcist, likes that sometimes, the hopeless man spends consecutive nights asleep on his couch instead of in his bed, likes that he stands at the door of the fridge, drinks old orange juice, and leans there, yawning.

 

He likes that he’s tired, because tired minds are easier to enter.

 

When he goes back this time, he goes back in a dream.

 

 

///////

 

 

It’s disastrous.

 

He leaves and does not return for an entire month after that— though he does dwell at the corner of the ceiling for a few moments, just in the early mornings. He’s looked at twice by Natori, who tries to speak with him, tells him to come down and stop hiding.

 

The shiki do still not dare to enter the apartment, despite the fact that he has been absent again. Natori cannot sleep anymore, barely ever does— he knows because he enters the room at night sometimes, to watch him. 

 

He won’t touch his dreams again, and hisses at himself when he thinks of what he saw when he did, of how the events of it had escalated, had turned, had drawn him in too much until he’d been in the bed himself, in that dream, had been pressed against the sheets by warm, human hands, and Natori (a dream, always, of course), had leaned in to press his mouth in a feverish, sweet slide of a kiss, to Matoba’s needle-filled mouth. He’d felt the roll of hips and the hands on him, against his skin, his thighs. A formidable, adoring lover— this man, this quarry of his. 

 

He’d known it because he’d watched the parade of girls from his apartment (he’d been aware that Natori was a man of many vices, of course; it was undeniable), had seen from above the naked S-curve of the film star’s back as he gripped and pinned the arm of whichever beautiful co-star who loved him that week. He’d seen the women’s faces when he did, had watched them afterwards as they lay in the circle of his arms, as they’d stroked his face and hair and promised to take care of him forever.

 

He’d watched as Natori had smiled at them, had joked sweetly with them in bed; ever the charming casanova. He’d focused on how the exorcist had reached up and threaded their hair back, through his fingers, each and every one of them; had curled it behind each of their ears, on so many different nights and given his excuses for having to leave early, followed by dizzying, warming kisses.

 

In the corner of the room once again, that whole month later, his eye reflects the faint light that seeps through the parted curtain. Natori is alone in bed, tossing fitfully, not even asleep.

 

Matoba’s been there for a few hours, has watched him since he first climbed into bed, half asleep from leaving the couch, pausing only to swallow whatever pills he favours before climbing between the sheets.

 

Finally, Natori sighs, sits up.

 

He reaches for the water bottle that’s beside his bed, and drinks from it, and Matoba’s eye follows the trail that spills down the man’s chin, focusing there, eye bright and refracting.

 

It’s the light that bounces from Matoba’s lens that catches in Natori’s periphery.

 

The exorcist stops, halting immediately, the water bottle still held in his hand. He lowers it slowly, screws the cap on with robotic focus, and then looks at Matoba.

 

“Long time no see,” He says, and the demon smiles at him.

 

“I had duties that called me from you.”

 

Natori’s smiling too now, though Matoba can feel it is false. 

 

It’s the smile of someone who has accepted a re-infestation - reinfection. A thing had been cured, now it has come back, regrown; tumorous and malignant. Matoba can smell the hot dread that radiates from him, and he likes it, wants to press his hands to the man’s chest and feel it at its source (he balks, nearly, at the fact that he wants that, quite badly). 

 

The light of the room is coming from behind the curtains; Natori has not bothered to reach for his bedside switch, as if he knows that light does not scare demons. Only the weakest of the broods flee from lamplight.

 

Matoba drags forwards, darkness at his heels.

 

He dips the end of the bed when he sits, claws held in his lap.

 

“Hello again, Shuuichi.”

 

Natori’s smile dims, and the man shifts in his bed, over to one side. It’s cold in the room already (colder now of course, because Matoba has chased the heat with his presence), and the demon can see that his quarry wants to pull the duvet up.

 

“Hello, my resident unwelcome guest. How sad to see you haven’t been stuck in a jar, yet.” Natori bites the words out in his sardonic way, but he pats the mattress beside him, invites Matoba closer, “Come, sit here, don’t be so awkward.”

 

Matoba does not move to sit with him, he keeps his distance this time, “You cannot sleep anymore.”

 

The reply comes, “Thanks to you.”

 

A mouth full of teeth splits into a smile, “Oh, of course. Did you think I’d forgotten you?”

 

“Hoped, _hoped_.” Natori says.

 

“No.” Matoba shifts a little, pulls a leg beneath himself. What a poor quarry for a demon of his calibre, what a pathetically human creature to be courting.

 

“No,” Natori echoes, in a monotone. Despite this, the exorcist has a strange look on his face; almost pleased, almost cruel when he speaks again after a time, “Were you embarrassed?”

 

The playful, mean thing in Matoba’s eye diminishes, and the room drops by five degrees, in even fewer seconds, the chill rising.

 

He’s still smiling, but it’s a display of teeth now, not humour.

 

“I do not suffer fools.”

 

“I can’t sleep when you watch me, you know.” Natori says.

 

He knows this, it’s why he watches. 

 

When Natori sleeps, he tries to touch his dreams instead. But, he won’t do that, not tonight at least, not until he’s worked up his nerve once more.

 

The exorcist sits up now, leans back against the headboard, “Come, at least pretend to nap, so that I can have my beauty rest.”

 

Temptation works both ways, he thinks, and lurks forwards without a spoken response.

 

Natori lifts the covers with the expression of someone going to war, and places them back afterwards, over Matoba’s shoulder, adjusting them with the practice of someone who has had more than enough bedfellows in his lifetime. There’s an ease in the way that Natori seems to navigate having someone share his bed - he’s clearly shared it enough to develop that.

 

Matoba; demon that he is, has never shared a bed. Not really. Vessels do not count; he’s in his true form in all of its corporeal, fanged, ghoul-haired freakishness.

 

Natori lies down, and from here, he can see the lovely blue of those dark smudges beneath the man’s eyes.

 

“That was a better dream than the ones before, you know. But, if you wanted something like that, you could have just asked.” Natori smiles, crooked, and it’s false confidence, maybe, but Matoba watches him in silence regardless.

 

The man continues: “you hid afterwards, but you never bothered to lift the curse.”

 

No, he didn’t. He'd kept his hold on this apartment, like a bookmark, like a bent page. Something to go back to.

 

“You liked it.” The demon’s head indents the pillow, and whorls of his hair spread out against the white linen.

 

Perhaps, he thinks, Natori intends to kill him with this, through this. 

 

The man has reached out once again, to stroke the strands nearest to him, fingers finding their way up, along them, towards Matoba’s scalp. They fit beneath, between, and rest gently against his head there, afraid of but not repulsed by the infernal red of his eye.

 

“Maybe, sure,” the exorcist says, “did I make you shy, was I too passionate?”

 

He doesn’t like this line of questioning, not at all, and there’s only a heavy silence from the demon that he’s invited in.

 

A long exhalation follows from Natori, and he tugs the sheets over himself too, eyes closing heavily before he turns his face to look at Matoba.

 

“I’m going to sleep now, I’m not sure if you sleep, but like I said. Take a nap, whatever.”

 

He does not require sleep, but he is capable of it. It rests him in a different way, different from worship or the collecting of souls or sacrifices. Some fragment of his inhuman soul remembers what it means to sleep, what it means to rest. 

 

He doesn’t realise that he’s still watching Natori, and he sees the man’s face fall, just so, before he hears him speak again, voice a whisper: “ _Please_.”

 

Being feared is half the fun of this, he thinks, and can’t place why he chooses to allow his eye to close as Natori had asked. The demon shifts a little, rustles the blankets, but then, he does calm, does go still. He feels the man watching him, of course, but senses nothing more than tiredness. The shiki on the roof are alert, he can hear them, but they are not reacting to this as a danger. Certainly, they are confused, but they are not afraid for their master, not tonight.

 

He sleeps, feels Natori’s breath against his skin when he moves closer.

 

 

///////

 

 

He follows Natori one afternoon, down to the convenience store. 

 

In the elevator, the lights blink and the man sighs, runs a hand over his tired eyes and addresses him: “You can show yourself, I’ve seen you plenty of times, you know.”

 

The demon listens, melts from the metal and forms himself before the actor; his features flicker and then flicker again, forming his sharp face and his thin mouth, recombining into the ugly scar of his right eye. He smiles, once, too widely, mimicking human expressions, and Natori flinches back.

 

“I’m aware that you know,” the demon says, and starts to rectify the disarray of his black robe, “because yesterday, you made breakfast for me, even though I was two prefectures over, far beneath the ground.”

 

“Mm”, Natori looks distracted, he pulls his hat on more firmly, “Yeah, sure.”

 

The demon considers his quarry. They’ve been coexisting for a few weeks now, and it’s more— peaceful. It’s not as antagonistic, not as charged. He makes the lights flicker until the man gives him a pained look, and then he stops, slinks off to dwell beneath the bed until he’s called up. The television holds a very particular fascination for him; its lights and fables and strangeness are something he’d tried to touch; claws reaching forward to splay against the flat screen, but Natori had flashed that same expression at him, and he’d rejoined him on the couch once more, lowering himself to sit at the man’s side, feeling his eyelids grow heavier when the exorcist had murmured _that’s enough, okay_ at him.

 

Perhaps, Matoba thinks, it’s because of his connection with this exorcist that his own form has begun to shift. He had been utterly demonic for a while - had spent so little time around humans that he’d taken on the features of all the things he came across; wild things, ghostly things. But he’s been coexisting with this Natori for some time, and he finds that his claws have receded, have become more geared towards touching the flesh of another person; softer, more rounded. His face, too has lost its slitted pupils, the over-large, feline eyes. The one that was not taken from him is still red, yes, but it’s mellowed out into a kind of bloody brown, instead of the fresh crimson that it had been. 

 

Natori walks through the rows of the convenience store, the store girls had greeted him with a lively welcome, and he’d smiled at them in his soft way— kind of— gentlemanly, but false and practiced. They could easily see Matoba if he allowed them to, but he’s not in the mood, and instead lurks close to the exorcist’s side, earning himself a look.

 

“What’s going on with you, hm?”

 

“Nothing, why do you ask.”

 

The demon’s eyes linger on the array of confections that line the shelves of the Family Mart they’re in, and he swallows, audibly, which catches Natori’s attention.

 

“Oh, you like those melon breads, don’t you. You ate all of the ones we’ve got in the fridge.”

 

He says nothing in response to that and sweeps past, though not so far as to actually stray into a different aisle. He waits, and Natori rejoins him, and the demon notes the four melon breads that have been deposited into their plastic basket. 

 

Natori picks up the rest of the required groceries (along with three rather expensive bottles of foreign wine - they share it, sometimes; these rituals seem to please Natori, Matoba thinks, they seem to agree with him. The warm evening lights - not too many, never overhead - and the offered glass of red wine along with dinner might be a tradition that has sprung up in humanity's recent years, he thinks. He’s never been around people for long enough periods, has never held enough of an interest. Of course, he’s also never been invited to take part in these nightly rituals either. Natori always looks warm, faintly flushed after the second glass - he grows more inviting, more affectionate. Matoba can’t lie; he’s far from inured - he joins him, gives in to the impulse to indulge the man, gives in to a lot of things).

 

The convenience store woman jumps when she sees Matoba beside Natori at the counter - she had not seen the dark haired man come in. Something about him unnerves her; she cannot quite see his face properly, and writes it down to nervousness at the way Natori is smiling at her. He’s a well known actor - a real movie star, one of the few customers that bothers to ask about her day, chat to her briefly as she scans his point card, then Rakuten card and packs his groceries. She likes his stories; his life is so different from her own - he tells her tidbits about vacations to Hawaii, shooting album covers, about press events in foreign cities. She daydreams that someday, he'll ask her to coffee.

 

Matoba finds her thoughts inane.

 

At the woman's embarrassed giggle, the lights of the convenience store waver, and Natori glances at the demon, reaching over to splay a hand against the creature’s lower back, turning the bright attention of his smile back to the clerk. The lights stop their glitching before they’re able to cut out entirely, and Matoba dourly takes one of the bags of groceries, waiting for Natori to stop his back and forth with the blushing girl in her Family Mart uniform.

 

It’s pouring with rain outside, so Natori runs back in to buy a last minute umbrella, and Matoba stands beneath the awning, holding both of the bags of groceries. He wonders, briefly, watching Natori laugh as he hands over the plastic umbrella to be rung up, why he has chosen to remain here, when he could so easily take over that useless body and inhabit this world in a physical form; bring chaos, raise the dead. Instead, he retains his true form, finding it growing more humanised, rather than feline or canine or something else.

 

“Let’s go. Here, careful.” Natori holds the umbrella above them both, and takes one of the packets from Seiji’s softly clawed hand. He stands close, keeps the demon that’s both haunting him and living with him near enough to shield him entirely from the rain.

 

Matoba allows it; as he has allowed so many strange, not unkind things these passing days.

 

 

///////

 

 

He sinks into Natori’s dream as one would a body of water; warm, like a natural onsen, and saturated with all of the arbitrary fodder that litters most human minds. The thoughts blur and then become clear; he’s found Natori in the deepest stages of dream - devoid of them entirely. The dream has simply mimicked reality at this point - he hovers over him in the air above his bed.

 

Natori’s eyes open, as if he has recognised him, and he smiles; mellow and a movie-star. The demon finds himself too curious to turn everything into terror as he had planned. He’ll do that later; he’ll follow this path down to its conclusion first.

 

“Hello, you.” Natori greets him, and he once again notes that the man does not seem afraid, instead there’s something immeasurably inviting about the way he pushes back the blankets on the bed in his dream, sits up against the headboard of his Western style bed and looks up at Matoba, his blond hair falling haplessly into his eyes and making him look both half-asleep and far softer than he usually appears. 

 

Matoba sinks down, to the foot of the bed, instead of simply hovering above as he often does (he mimics night terrors, occasionally; holds the man in place with a thought and won’t let him wake fully, looming above in no real form at all - simply as a darkness, as a faint impression of a demon).

 

“Come here,” the man says, and relaxes back against the headboard more fully, tired even in his own sleep.

 

Matoba does not reply and sits, perches, there by the other’s feet.

 

“Hello,” he returns the greeting, crossing his legs beneath him and letting his red eye narrow, move across the handsome face before him.

 

“Hello,” Natori echoes, again, a hand outstretched towards the figure at the edge of his bed.

 

Matoba doesn’t move to take his hand just yet, though he has before now, in the waking hours.

 

“Everything fine?” The exorcist asks, dropping his hand, and looking over at him - not angry at being woken up as he may have been in the past (angry, afraid, terrified, exhausted - Matoba has seen all of these things pass over his face, has seen each expression tighten into each defined emotion). He can still feel the caution that Natori hides from him, can feel the reticence that plagues their interactions. He knows that Natori neither trusts nor has stopped fearing him, but he also feels the strange pull towards something more gentled - a dulling of the edges of the fear.

 

Something that no longer deals in jump-scares, but rather in a slow build that can be diminished by a walk to the river and back.

 

This does not change the fact that the fear remains. Not that Matoba wants it gone. He feeds off it still, just as he’d fed off Natori’s energy in the first few weeks. He remembers how tired he’d seen him, how there had been phone calls, house calls, from an agent - the woman had berated his quarry, he thinks, judging by the angry whine coming from the other end of the phone, and Natori’s dour, one-word responses. The demon has lessened this will to feed, though, and Natori has improved - his condition, his complexion - it’s brighter, more akin to someone living than someone slowly fading into sleep deprivation.

 

“You were asleep,” the demon says, moving up now, so that he occupies the opposite side of the bed, waiting for Natori to move the covers aside for him so that he can clamber beneath them, “I thought it best to join you here, instead of waking you.”

 

“That’s sweet,” Natori says, and leans his head against the headboard. He says things like this, often, in response to anything otherworldly that Matoba comes out with - he’ll joke; sardonic and droll in his delivery. Matoba could not tell whether he meant it or not, initially. He’d pause, confronted with being told that he’s being “cute”, or that his turning all of the bathwater to blood was “hilarious”. Tonight, it feels more genuine, he thinks, because Natori’s looking at him quite gently, seeming highly accessible in his grey t-shirt, his eyes half-mast.

 

“You were tired today,” the demon starts, “I thought it wiser to permit you a night’s rest. You were barely functional last week.”

 

Natori looks at him, and then smiles, sudden and wide, “Ah, the movie, yeah. We filmed late every day.”

 

Matoba nods, he knows. Natori had not returned to the apartment until the early hours of the morning, covered in powder and hair gel, bone tired and fumbling with the keys to the front door. Matoba had stood on the edge of the genkan to greet him, like an overlarge cat - he’d waited there when he’d seen him off, overcome by the insane urge to scale the walls and howl until he returned. A human day is nothing in the mind of a powerful, ancient beast, but that week had dragged by - for the first time in his immortal life, Matoba had found himself frustrated, bored out of his mind and content only when he returned to his spot in front of the door. He’d waited, then, had crouched down and fiddled with the skirting on the wall until it nearly pulled from its glue.

 

Natori had opened the door to find him there; had nearly jumped out of his own skin at the sight of that red eye and mess of ghoulish hair - all turned towards him from its spot on the ground, rising slowly, as if from a great, still lake to look him in the eyes.

 

To the actor’s credit, he’d waved, stupidly, at his now-resident demon, had said the usual “I’m home”, to be greeted only by Matoba’s: “You took a long time”.

 

Now, he seems to have pleased Natori with his observations (he does nothing but observe; this is the crux of it), and he’s permitted closer, slinking in to fit beneath the warm arm of the exorcist. He’d cut the man with his claws in the beginning of his haunting - had sliced right through the skin of his back with them. He’d bitten him too, while he slept, had emerged in the man’s dreams as some hideous creature, sunk his teeth into an exposed ankle and then disappeared with the daylight, leaving only the rings of his bite-marks, bleeding and garish.

 

All things, it would seem, are permitted in dreams.

 

Natori’s watching him again; his head is tilted to one side, eyelashes dark over his gaze. Something curious in Matoba niggles, and he can’t stop his own question from surfacing.

 

“Something pressing is on your mind, I believe.”

 

He settles more completely against his quarry, finding the tick of the man’s pulse against him quite soothing. Natori has rested a hand at the dip of his waist, just beneath his ribcage. It fits there, nicely - stable and sure, the man’s thumb moving idly against him, finding the jut of lowermost rib and remaining just beneath it.

 

“Nothing really important,” the man says, and his hand pats there, where it’s fallen, just against Matoba’s side, “do you want to make out?”

 

Ah.

 

“I mean, you’ll have to watch your teeth, you split my lip the last time we tried.”

 

He’d apologised, kind of, in his way. He’d nursed it, licked it clean of blood (with something a little dangerous in that gesture, because Natori had pulled away and gone off to find a tissue as soon as he’d started). He’s not opposed to trying again.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Great, lie back, will you?”

 

They’re not even in a reality that permits this to be remembered, Matoba thinks, his mind preoccupied with the lure and gravitational steadiness of Natori’s hands, Natori may forget this come morning. Either way, he wants it, is glad for the strangely modern offer - the words are so casual, so unobtrusive.

 

But, the action holds weight, holds water, holds— he leans in, easily.

 

He uses caution when kissing back, holds his teeth in check and does not dig his claws into Natori’s warm flesh. Instead his hands slip beneath the t-shirt to lie against the man’s back, allowing Natori to shift him as he pleases, to take whatever lead he seems to like taking in these kinds of physical things. Matoba is above it, he thinks, he’s certain. But, even a cryptid born of hellfire can give in to the demands of a semi-physical plane, dream or no dream, and he just— relents.

 

Natori kisses with less caution, but with greater finesse. He’d never kissed a human mouth before he’d kissed Natori’s, and the action was both strange in its intimacy and unattractive to him, too. Too slick, too mortal - he’d pulled back like a cat from an opened faucet at first, nose wrinkling of its own accord. Natori had laughed at him and he’d burst all the lights in the room at his insolence. Now, he’s just this side of more practiced, and the part that he likes is when the exorcist’s arm slides, fitting around his waist, tugging him in until he’s pushed his hands further up the other’s t-shirt, open hands covering his shoulder blades.

 

It’s nothing to be manoeuvred onto his back, nothing to shift a leg so that they’re pressed flush. Less than nothing to chase the slight hum of satisfaction that leaves Natori into another round of kissing.

 

The dream is long— languid and mellow and he allows Natori to push him down into the mattress. They fuck, sure; dreams are easy. Sex is simply an extension - he wakes in the exorcist’s arms, to sheets that stick to his legs, the warm exhalations of Natori’s breath pressed to the back of his neck.

 

 

///////

 

 

Earlier in his encroachment upon Natori’s life, he’d had to contend with the protective wards that covered the apartment.

 

They had been nothing much to deal with, though, and he’d torn through them with a claw, picking up the hemp cloth from where it was attached. The protective spells were all over the apartment - they did nothing to him, of course, he’s barely a youkai, far closer to something else, something from a different vein of mythology. He’d examined them - they were the work of someone diligent in their studies of the hidden arts, someone who had learnt these techniques, and then painstakingly replicated them, had truly endeavoured to make them as strong as possible. 

 

Of course, the problem presented, he’d thought, leaning down to sniff the ofuda, was that the man’s spirit lacked strength. His opinions lacked weight, and his wards lacked bite. There was nothing fearsome about these preventative measures, and while they would keep the menial demons from the door, they would do nothing against a strong resolve.

 

He’d noticed the salt at the door, too, and had hesitated before crossing the threshold. But, he’d crossed anyway, scattered the salt with a foot and entered regardless, glancing back to see the tiny heaps of powder blowing this way and that on the floor of the hallway.

 

He remembers how he’d watched Natori come home to find it; had seen them man and his shiki crouch near the doorway, leaning in to check for a signature, some sort of demonic lingering that would give the intruder away. 

 

The smallest of the shiki; female presenting, blond hair like her master, had sensed more than the others. 

 

She’d looked at him, had frozen in her place and stared at what she thought she saw. It was a strong premonition on her part, Matoba thinks. Her attachment to her master is such that she’d sense something, some threat - it was not surprising that she’d noticed him first, before the others had even begun to sniff hi out. But, attachment can only help so much, before skill is needed to detect a hellish entity.

 

The group had entered the house, and the process of repairing the wards had begun - Natori had appeared unsettled by it; he doubled and then redoubled his efforts to protect the place - checking the papers again, stringing those little lines of paper shiki from roof corner to roof corner. The apartment had looked like it was done up for some Western holiday with all of the defences in place, and Matoba had walked through it that night as Natori slept, smirking and reaching up to disengage one strand of Natori’s papers, watching the joined hands of the paper shiki fall down to the floor of the dim apartment.

 

He’d been pleased at his own stroke of luck with regard to this exorcist. A powerful family of exorcists would always present a difficulty - they were protected because of their numbers and combined spiritual energies, and usually had a family library of knowledge that would have been passed both orally and studied by the younger generations of upcoming exorcists. 

 

There also tended to be the problem of entering a Shinto home - sometimes he struggled with the wards that were built into the structures - sacred architecture, certain alignments of the compass points - these things could outfox him and leave him scrabbling with window latches, annoyed as a thwarted house fly, and in the stronger family homes, he would find his skin burned by the act of entering a torii gate.

 

But, those sorts of strong clans were barely existent anymore - the eleven families had been united by the Matoba clan before it broke off into a sect of its own under his name, and after that uproar, they had scattered once again, hiding behind their compounds and high walls, stringing their shiki up along the tops of the gates to watch the paths for signs of intrusion.

 

It was troublesome to infiltrate those kinds of homes - and Matoba is too proud to risk being shut out by a crowd of overeager shiki. When he’d noticed this Natori child - in self-imposed exile from his own family, he’d seen an alluring new subject. There were no sacred gates to bypass, just an electronic door - he’d slipped straight through it, as if it were nothing. The apartment block had some wards - probably put there by the exorcist himself, but they had been the work of a single exorcist, one with watery, mutable strength.

 

Anyway.

 

Natori’s wards had broken easily beneath his claws.

 

He remembers the first of some nights - he had sat behind the couch, on the floor, watching as he liked to. His quarry had drawn a triangular symbol there, on the ground, in a white felt marker (wiser than chalk, he notes, how practical. Clearly this exorcist has had to learn some things about this business the hard way), having pushed aside the coffee table and carpet. He’d watched the man lie down within the confines of the triangle, each corner lit by a candle. His shiki had been sent outside to keep watch, and the apartment was once again littered with ofuda symbols. This, he had thought, is the paranoia that he’d wanted, that he’d been trying to cause.

 

On some level, he thinks, that little symbolical exercise had worked - Natori had slept the night in his stupid triangle, and Matoba had stayed out of his dreams. It kept him from entering the man’s head, yes, but only by way of distracting him through his own curiosity. 

 

He’d wanted to watch this ritual take place - wanted to see the desperation, the discomfort.

 

Of course, Natori no longer sleeps in spell circles - it’s not necessary. He’s made peace with both of his parasites, it would seem, though the lizard barely dares to come out from Natori’s hairline.

 

He’s seen it - sometimes. It sleeps in the hollow of its host’s collarbone, like a strange, small and loyal dog.

 

 

///////

 

 

“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Natori?” Yorishima glares at the young man, notes the odd, purpling colours beneath his eyes, the shock of blood vessels in the corners. Exhaustion hangs heavy in the air around Natori Shuuichi, and the elderly exorcist rises, makes them tea - one-handed - and returns, placing the steaming cup in front of the man.

 

Natori’s smile crooks, tautens. 

 

“I seem to have taken on a houseguest.”

 

There’s no change in Yorishima’s expression, “Go on.”

 

A shrugged shoulder, and Natori turns his cup, thumb pressing to the heated clay just once before he breaks into another of his smiles.

 

“I’m not so sure what sort of youkai it is - it’s been, uh, quite troublesome.”

 

 _Troublesome_. Yorishima has never had Natori come to him with something of this nature before - sure, he’d asked him this or that, but there seems to be a weight in the younger man’s words this evening, something spurred by a greater issue than some simple haunting. The ageing exorcist stares at Natori, and suppresses the shudder that runs through him as he does. There’s something lagging behind the man, he thinks, there’s something that’s got a hook in him, and won’t let go.

 

He feels its signature; sure and thin and dark. Well hidden, but as unbreakable and certain in its existence as a metal wire. 

 

Natori sits at his kitchen table as he has, many times over the passing years since he’s known him, and cups his hands about the cup of tea. He looks ill, if Yorishima is honest with himself, and he can’t help but sense something terminal about this. He knows what that’s like, of course, he’s lived with his own parasite attached to him for many years. Parasites are caught easily when one lives in fear and alone, he’s all too aware of that. Natori has been careless, has no true backup for when he needs to guard against the more sinister evils that he’s opened himself to. 

 

“How long have you been sensing this?” Yorishima says, studying the young man.

 

Natori shrugs, takes a sip of his tea, “A few weeks, it started out really quiet.”

 

“They do, they take hold fast, though, after that.”

 

“Yeah,” the younger exorcist seems— uncomfortable, “I know.”

 

“You know, do you” he echoes, “What is your instinct, what do you think it is, Natori?”

 

“I’m not sure, I’ve tried to research, but nothing fits it - it’s— smart.” 

 

Such discomfort, something’s odd about this creature, Yorishima thinks, surprised at himself for referring to it as a creature. There’s solidity in the impression he has, in the psychic footprint it has left. 

 

Outside, there’s a cricket chirping in the early evening of the garden - it’s a nice night, if not a bit premature, and Yorishima stares out of the window for a time, arm held against his chest in its sling.

 

“Have you been attempting rituals above your skill set, hmm?” He’s not teasing, but not— entirely devoid of humour when he says this. He’s not— un-fond of Natori. The boy has his charms now, and always has. The acting career, the stardom; it intensified and fed the things that were present in him from the beginning, Natori had been looking for a mentor, those years ago that he first met him, but he’d been nothing of the sort to him. Too jaded, too done with the lot of them. But, he’d entertained him for reasons of his own, had advised him when he could. He continues to do so. After all — Natori holds a brightness that can be both suffocating and— well, it’s a kind of levity too, isn’t it? It offsets the dulls of a life lived in exile. 

 

Yorishima isn’t young, he has no children of his own. Natori is not a son to him, not by any stretch, but having the twenty-three year old in his home— it’s what he imagines it must be to have some sort of connection outside of his walls.

 

Not that he’d share this; he’s too proud. But still. He considers the worn set of Natori’s shoulders.

 

“No rituals, that’s what I’m— well. I’m worried about it, if it came to me after a job, or just at random— as luck would have it,” Natori says, and scrubs a palm over his eyes, pushing his fingers up and into his fringe, dragging it back off his forehead. The scruff of hair hangs handsomely for a while, before falling back into place.

 

Yorishima knows, immediately, that there is more to this story than Shuuichi is letting on. But, he won’t push, not unless Natori chooses to share it himself.

 

“It’s making you ill,” he says, voice even, eyes level.

 

“I suppose— yes,” Natori seems reluctant to admit even this.

 

The crickets outside his window have increased in number since before, and there’s a soft whining chorus of them, in the blue-green light. He’s left the window open wide; his wards are strong enough, he has no fear of retribution, not tonight at least. The phases of the moon, the tides - these things all have their pull and pressure on his protective devices. He knows when caution is needed, he hopes Natori pays the same attention to his own wards, to his own home. 

 

Natori’s face is turned towards the window now too, and his eyes flicker shut. Yorishima can’t be certain if the young man is enjoying a moment of solace away from whatever lurks in his apartment, or if he’s simply so tired that he cannot retain the focus of a long conversation. Either way, he thinks, there’s something evil trailing along with him, something that will cause him long term damage, long term issues. If it is not dealt with. Speaking of—

 

“Have you tried to exorcise it? I suppose it’s silly to ask, if you’re here.”

 

Natori takes a moment to return his gaze to him, looking effortlessly attractive, despite the lack of sleep, “Of course, but none of the techniques work.”

 

Not a youkai, then.

 

“I know little of the demons from parallel mythologies, you ought to ask the Matoba clan, they deal in all kinds of things.”

 

There’s an odd, twitching reassessment of attention from Natori, at that.

 

“No, I don’t think that’s wise.”

 

There’s a timbre to the words that’s more serious than he was before, more grave. What then, about the Matoba clan, is involved here? Something, Yorishima thinks, oh, absolutely something. This boy knows more, and he’s come here for sympathy, not a solution.

 

“What language do you speak, when you speak to it?” He asks, and it’s a step, a leap - but he’s certain he’s correct in his assumptions. Natori’s in this now, and not just by halves.

 

They make eye contact, and the crickets outside whine, the darkness of the early evening accelerating, the candle on the table before them causing the rest of the house to seem pitch black.

 

Natori holds his gaze, but looks away, exhaling, “Japanese.”

 

“Ah, I see.”

 

So, they’ve spoken at length, then.

 

Yorishima continues, in lieu of Natori’s further silence, “Is it here now?”

 

There’s only more silence, and something cold and dreadful runs down the exorcist’s spine. Foresight. The candle flickers in the breeze from the window, sputtering before stabilising again. It gleams in Natori’s eyes when he dips his head to look at it, and Yorishima watches, sees the muddle of red and gold and wonders what it is that is so awful about this new haunting. He fears, too, that perhaps— perhaps it’s followed. These things can be dogged, they can be jealous.

 

This one, he thinks, _this one is_.

 

Natori doesn’t answer.

 

The candle continues its flickering.

 

“Shuuichi.”

 

Natori’s slow to look back at him.

 

“Is it here.”

 

It takes a certain few seconds of holding Natori’s gaze to discern more than just his tiredness. But, he sees it; the dread. So. Had young Shuuichi wavered and reconsidered even coming to Yorishima for help? Clearly his need had won out, over his reluctance, because the young man is here, now. What is so terrible that it cannot be spoken about even here, with all these wards in place. 

 

Only one explanation for it, he thinks, and and it freezes his old, tainted blood just to think it.

 

After all, the shadow has been seated in the corner of the ceiling for the past two hours.

 

As if he wouldn’t have noticed.

 

 

///////

 

 

He sits beside the bathtub, and, from time to time, dangles a claw in. 

 

The water is heavily loaded with salt, of course, but Matoba has never feared saltwater like some of the others. He’s been to the bottom of oceans, sat on many sea floors in his time. They have no more effect on him than the open air, no more than the deep lakes. But, that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy the water. He removes his hand from it, resting it against the rim of the bath instead, tapping against the porcelain idly.

 

“You were successful,” Matoba tips his head towards Natori, who is soaking in the bath, a cloth over his eyes.

 

“Mmhm.”

 

The demon’s chin is lowered to the lip of the tub, “I offered to go with you, yet you insist on going alone— always.”

 

There’s a long breath from Natori, and the exorcist finally reaches up to remove the cloth, slinging it over the side of the bath so that Matoba has to move his hand. He looks better; far better than he has in a long time. 

 

The tap drips, and Natori turns his head, fringe damp and slicked out of his eyes.

 

“Get in with me,” he says, lips curling into a smirk, “don’t be so shy.”

 

Matoba frowns at the saltwater bath that the exorcist has made for himself in the wake of this most recent job. It is a common ritual, he knows - the saltwater clears the psychic muck of exorcism from the skin. It’s a routine practice - he often sits with Natori when the man is in the bath. He’s been splashed only a handful of times, and always much to his extreme distaste.

 

“No, I don’t think so.”

 

“Scared.”

 

He’s not scared, as Natori has implied. But equally, he’s not so childish as to respond to such a challenge. He knows— Natori wants him there; it’s enough.

 

“I’ll meet you once you’re out. Be sure to rinse the salt off,” the demon watches him, finally uncurling - rising with the same drama as always, not even so much as a click of a joint as he does so. 

 

He’s silent in his movements - it’s something that has occasionally unnerved Natori. Matoba will walk to him, will appear behind him, will step to his side; all in dead silence. Something thrills in the demon’s gut when the exorcist yelps; jumping in surprise at seeing Matoba has crept up on him so effortlessly.

 

Later, Natori finds Matoba in his usual position on the sofa; wedged against the corner as if he’s turned this particular perch in to a point of ownership. He always sits there, just at the junction. 

 

He glances up when Natori enters the room, now wrapped in a bathrobe, slippered feet hitting the carpet as he makes his way over. They’ve fallen briskly into an intimacy that has come to keep them both at the apartment more often than not - Matoba has his evil, demonic duties, naturally, but he finds that the lure of _keeping Natori company_ is quite beguiling in its own right.

 

The exorcist joins him there, patting at his ankle so that he moves, accommodating the dip and pitch of Natori easing himself down beside him, then shifting, landing his damp head in Matoba’s lap. Dark hair falls in a spooky, silken curtain to brush the man’s forehead, and he reaches down, curves a hand along the side of Natori’s face.

 

“What sort, today?”

 

The exorcist leans into him, and he allows it, moves his leg so that the man can lie more comfortably with him.

 

“Straight forward possession. Ritual went wrong, the wife caught the thing when it was escaping. It took them seven weeks before they noticed, funny that,” Natori answers, closing his eyes against the attention. “The family didn’t know what he’d been dabbling in. They weren't our sort of rituals, not Shinto or anything,” he says, and reaches to close his fingers around the demon’s ankle, thumb stroking the innermost point, just below the bone, “Abramelin stuff, binding spells. Not my field either.”

 

Bloody, then. He’d seen Natori when he’d come in earlier (he waits at the genkan, as always; humiliated by the wish to see someone as keenly as he wishes to see this weak mortal), and there had been stains on him; dark red, soaking the slacks and jacket that he wore. His foolish little hat was nowhere in sight.

 

“You did not call for me.”

 

“No, you’re not my shiki,” is the reply, and it’s a little— tight.

 

“I’m not, no.”

 

And he never will be. Matoba loathes the idea— a demon, an ancient creature bound in service? It’s worthy of a Western biblical verse; an affront. He’ll never lower himself into service for this exorcist. He knows the man wants it, knows that Natori would take him on in that fashion, were he to offer. But— only were he to offer. That old fool exorcist who lives in the forest— Yorishima— he knows that Natori wants to impress him, to prove something of his own strength to him. Showing that he is capable of besting his infernal roommate would do the trick, he supposes.

 

Natori looks up at him, a hand closing about Matoba’s own now. He thumbs one of the demon’s claws gently.

 

“Movie?”

 

He likes movies— watching them together with the exorcist is— menial, in a way. But utterly novel, too. There are, he’s finding, many novelties with regard to Natori Shuuichi.

 

There’s a shuffle of positions once Matoba nods, and Natori sits up and puts an arm around him, turning his head to watch the demon’s profile for a time, to look into what was once his right eye.

 

“Everything okay?” Natori asks. 

 

They don’t talk like this very often— but it’s kind— that he’s asking, Matoba supposes. He’s indignant at himself for how he’s bent to fit this man’s life, how he’s dismantled the wards on the apartment, only to protect it from anything even slightly untoward.

 

The Natsume boy won’t enter, anymore, and he knows that this saddens Natori in a way that’s something akin to grief. But, he can’t un-sink his claws from something he now wants so badly— he can’t quite make himself allow for any kind of normal life. After all, the child is dangerous, in his way. He knows about his cursed book, so does Natori. The boy plays with fire. Multiple fires. Brings risk to all around him. It’s _not_ his own jealousy of his quarry having a human friend, he thinks, surely— surely. But, Natsume, he thinks, is about as human as his grandmother, about as human as that cat that he carries.

 

“Fine. Yourself?” Matoba asks, and blinks at Natori, slips a hand inside the neck of the man’s robe and rests it there, against his chest, finding him warm from the bath.

 

“Fine too,” he says, tipping his chin sidelong, cheek landing against the side of the demon’s head, pressed to his black hair.

 

The affection has become second-nature to him, now, where once it was very raw, very strange. Natori makes it easy, he supposes, because he is an affectionate person— he knows that Natori craves connection, physical or otherwise. He’d gone with him not so long ago, to visit the woman that used to care for him— Sumi-san, at her small home, near the main Natori family compound.

 

He remembers staying behind, until Natori had called him over, looked cautious, but had said, firmly, “This is my friend, Seiji.”

 

It was neither preferable nor easy to dumb down his appearance so that a human might be able to look upon him without fear, but he did it anyway, because the way that Natori had turned to him— the expression that he had worn— had been such that he could not decline him.

 

He’d watched as Natori had hugged the old woman goodbye— uncommon, for this culture, he’d thought, and something bizarre had caught in him; new and odd— affection had settled within his gut. To be moved by a human gesture was hardly familiar for Matoba, and he’d watched, waited, as Natori had waved good-bye, then rejoined him, placed a hand against his waist and murmured _let’s go back,_ had reached to secure Matoba’s scarf more snugly around his neck, and had walked with him like that, towards the waiting taxi.

 

 _Seiji_.

 

Not all things are lost with time, it would seem.

 

 

///////

 

 

Somewhere, not quite close enough to the Eastern forest to be called East, the fires of the Matoba clan glow in the darkness, the trees surrounding a central clearing have been marked with symbols, the dark reds stained into them are neither ink nor paint. The ritual is over, and their master has not returned. Blood had been spilled tonight, and there had been a complex rite completed. They are gathered at the fringe of the clearing, all in the trees, waiting for his appearance, their black robes making them look like the denizens of a very old cult, a clan of witches, a clan of acolytes, of fanatics.

 

It does not come, and Nanase walks towards the middle of the clearing, her long shiki trailing behind her. An infant's blood had not brought him; she knows that the clan will be on edge. This is the longest that he has been away, and she’s certain he’s found distraction. She does not ask after his duties, of course, she is simply his disciple— but. There are murmurs from the clansmen; the hush breaks. He would appear to them now, usually— the moon is new, there are only stars to light the sky. But, the forest remains alive with the creak of trees, and the sound of the night birds. There is no unearthly silence, not like when he makes his presence known.

 

Another child will die then, she thinks, and stands at the point where the campfire has been extinguished in anticipation for his arrival.

 

There have been rumours of a new power— she still pays attention to the gossip of the exorcism circles, even if she herself no longer participates. A boy with a wolf god attached to him, disguised as a house cat.

 

Perhaps he has found interest there, she thinks. He has always been certain to destroy their enemies, has always harvested powers that he thinks they can use. In return, they worship him, keep him fed on the things that he likes.

 

Well.

 

He has no appetite tonight, she thinks, and turns towards the clan.

 

“Go home,” she says, “We will repeat it tomorrow. He’ll turn up.”

 

They doubt her, she knows.

 

But— he speaks with her; over and above them. They won’t dissent, not yet. Not until he stops visiting them entirely. That may raise difficult questions, may split the clan.

 

The denizens of the Matoba clan file off into the trees, torchlights reigniting as they disappear. The clan’s fires will burn through until morning, and Nanase will keep watch. He will return to them, he always has.

 

Distractions are nothing when devotion and blood are on the table.

 

The clan know his tastes.

 

 

///////

 

 

Natori fucks him, and he permits it.

 

He drapes a leg over the man’s hip and drags him closer, drags him closer with claws and heel and with every roll of his hips as he meets him. He knows he leaves scratches, knows that perhaps it’s a little uncouth to dig those claws in as deeply as he has, but he does it because he likes the scent, likes the feeling of sinking into soft flesh, mirrors the action of sex itself; he can’t help it.

 

The exorcist moans into his ear; he’s vocal, Matoba likes that, too. Sometimes gentle with his encouragements, his praise, sometimes cruel— and, Natori _can_ be cruel, he knows, and he likes that as much as all the rest of it, likes when the man, biting a moan, calls him _devil_.

 

How far is that from the truth, though, he thinks, and sinks his teeth into the man’s shoulder, listens for the catch of breath just as Natori sinks into him in kind, muscle giving way, sweat slick against his own, a choked groan signalling what? Pain, a pleasurable ache, genuine hurt? He can’t tell, doesn’t care to know. 

 

The exorcist turns his head, buries his face against Matoba’s hair and pins his arm the way he likes, closes his fingers around the demon’s wrist and keeps him there, holds him with the consideration of a lover who knows what he enjoys, knows just how rough he can be; walking between softness and incaution with the ease of someone who has done it before, night after night.

 

It’s Matoba’s turn, soon enough — his body is not so inhuman now that he’s taken on a physical form— a particular angle of Natori’s hips, the way they snap forward, catches the most vital nerve endings and he shudders, mouth wide, breathing against Natori’s own, teeth catching the man’s lip. 

 

The exorcist does not kiss him, despite the clear motion he’d made to ask him for it, and instead another thrust follows, another, and Matoba snarls Natori’s given name, calls him _Shuuichi_ and rakes his back with his claws (which are no longer the dulled nails of a person, but once again the talons of a creature; these physical, carnal things do bring it out in him).

 

They don’t talk, which is odd for them— both are talkative with each other in the daylight.

 

Matoba whines, bares his teeth instead, and Natori responds by finally kissing him, crushing their noses together and missing the demon’s mouth entirely. It’s infinitely warm, he thinks, and noses back in to request another, deeper kiss, and gets it without fuss.

 

Matoba’s head snaps back against the bed, and Natori’s breathing is erratic, building. There’s blood on the sheets from the weeping cuts on the exorcist’s back, and Matoba has his share of bruises. Absently, removed from their coupling, he hopes that those marks leave scars.

 

“Shuuichi,” he grits out, using Natori’s given name again, only here, “ _Shuuichi_.”

 

There’s a lot of eye-contact after that, and he can see Natori smile above him, see something fatal in it, something triumphant. He forgets with the pressure of the man’s hips, of his hands, and reaches for him, buries his face in the crook of his neck and says his name again. The exorcist holds him, mouth pressed against his temple, murmurs Matoba's given name too, easily pushed into tenderness.

 

Natori’s never had the stomach, he thinks, to be cruel for too long.

 

Sex with Natori is not the ritual, ceremonial fucking that he’s seen before in forests and on sacred ground during blood moons. It’s by turns tender and rough— sometimes, he thinks, it’s something like vulnerable; burning through him.

 

He likes the broken, shuddering moan that Natori gasps out when he comes. Matoba himself is silent, eyes closing and brows furrowing, forehead sinking back down to hide his face against the side of Natori’s jaw, muscles convulsing. 

 

There’s this, too: Natori holds him tightly afterwards, kisses him on the mouth and the cheek and temple and strokes his hair, lies with him for as long as he allows him to.

 

The sun has gone down by the time he raises his head; they’ve changed positions, shifted slightly— he’s got his head on Natori’s chest, just about by his clavicle, the man’s arm lies relaxed about his waist. His quarry is sleeping, breath displacing the strands of Matoba’s fringe with each exhalation.

 

There are slats of evening sunlight on the bedsheets, and he looks at the illuminated fluff of Natori’s blond hair, his nice, masculine face and strong jawline. He dips his nose and mouth and nudges in against the man’s cheek, breathing in the scent of him for a time before laying back down. They’ve passed some vital point, he thinks, and winds his own arm around Natori’s midsection, but it’s too late for second thoughts. He’ll haunt this being until his inevitable death, he thinks; he’ll stay.

 

Natori shifts and turns towards him in his sleep, hooking a leg around one of Matoba’s, thigh slid between both of the demon’s, heel just briefly stroking a calf before he relaxes once more, mumbles something imperceptible, and falls back into the deep sleep of post-orgasmic napping.

 

Matoba does not move to free himself, to detangle their limbs. He rests a hand on the other’s back, feels the scabbing wounds he’d left in the heat of the moment. His palm covers them, warms the skin that’s cooling in the chilly, early evening bedroom. Natori makes some faint noise of annoyance, and the demon’s mouth curves of its own accord, amused at him.

 

The clan can do without him for half a lifetime, surely. He will visit them in their more powerful rituals, but, he thinks, he can do this while living beside this useless human creature, too. He’ll have something to return to— how menial, how uninteresting. Natori will be even more lonely without him, he thinks, so he will stay. 

 

If a human life can be extended, he thinks, well then, perhaps he’ll stay even longer.

 

He’s a selfish creature; there are ways and means.

 

One of the man’s hands has come up to bunch in Matoba’s hair now, probably tangling it beyond all hope. It’s fine, he knows that Shuuichi will comb it for him, if he asks, perhaps in the bath— not the salted bath, of course. He’s more partial to them when they contain all of that water _and_ Natori. Perhaps— perhaps Natori will sing to him again.

 

Anyway, he thinks, his working eye shutting. 

 

There are ways and means.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
